Because, dammit, he was feeling, not thinking. Standing between species as he did, thinkingwas a survival skill, feelingwas a useful barometric reading, and the job, the important thing wasn’t the survival of Bren Cameron—it was the accurate reading of situations that enabled Shejidan and Mospheira to survive.
And whatever the ship did or arranged, he couldn’t let it sell out those interests.
He took himself to the study to gather his wits, while his staff dealt with less abstract matters.
And, one world touching the other, a servant appeared, regular as clockwork, asking amid the necessary confusion whether he wished tea—he often did, when he ended the day.
“Yes,” he said. A little routine was good for him—reassuring to the staff. So he agreed to the tea, and sat, and stared at the walls, the familiar shelves, the environment he had designed, he himself, with his own hand.
His place. His creation. It wasn’t for him to resent being ripped out of it, sent off into danger as casually as he dealt with the servants.
Barometric reading? Betrayal was something he’d personally felt more than once with atevi. It was an emotion he’d most specifically learned to turn loose and forget, because the equations of behavior just weren’t the same, and a human couldn’t feel the tugs and pulls that made some decisions, for an ateva, logical and reasonable—even automatic, lest he forget. He’d been locked in Ilisidi’s basement and beaten black and blue, and he’d forgiven that; he’d been handed over to an enemy, and set up for assassination, and he understood that. Forgiveness didn’t matter a thing to an ateva who thought the decisions logical. Man’chi was man’chi and actions within it were all reasonable, when a lord needed something.
But there were puzzles.
Why would Tabini call him down to the planet for a completely empty mission? Why call him down for a small private talk that only discussed court gossip and then send him back again with not a word of what was coming?
Why, why, and why, when Ramirez was at death’s door and events were sliding toward the brink?
Granted Tabini had known that, in specific—was the whole ceremony down there only cover? A way for the dowager to get to Shejidan and then board a shuttle—but for some reason not the shuttle that carried him, though he had become inconsequential to the aiji’s plans?
Had his trip down and back been diversion, to attract the news services and raise empty questions, keeping the news away from Ilisidi? His presence was far more unusual than hers—and it had attracted notice.
Possible. Entirely possible. He could accept being used in that sense. It made perfect sense, and didn’t at all hurt his feelings.
But the timing—right before Ramirez’s death. Rightbefore the news broke.
No. Cancel that thought. Assassination wasn’t likely. The one thing, the one unintended event that let the cat out of the bag had been that worker with the injured hand, the one who’d overheard Ramirez giving Jase an emergency briefing. That had thrown everything public before the captains could move: thathad brought the acceleration in the program, when a couple of thousand crew found out they’d been deceived, tricked, delayed, and lied to. If not for that one accident, the surviving captains could have had a year or more to plan the mission.
Kroger had just arrived up here with the robots and the promise of an accelerated program, that was planned.
But Tabini had just turned over the management of his heir to Ilisidi. Then Ramirez died—and Tabini couldn’t admit himself surprised or disarrayed, not even for a death. He’d already turned Cajeiri over to Ilisidi—and had to stand by that, or not send Ilisidi, who was the only choice that wouldn’t create dangerous stress in the Association. Geigi would have been next most logical—but Geigi was western, and that was controversial.
So from the aiji’s point of view, Ramirez had needed to stay alive.
Ramirez, who hadn’t briefed Jase, which he’d clearly wanted to do, and did rashly at the last. The captains hadn’t made provision for a successor, or for a full complement of four captains, acting or permanent, for the ship in operation. So as a group, the captains hadn’t known. Onecaptain might have acted to remove Ramirez, and Sabin would have been his immediate suspicion, but he saw no advantage she gained.
And the three day departure? He didn’t know how long it took to prep a fueled ship for a mission from scratch. He did know that the ship never had been powered down, that it ran, continually, being a residency and training site for its crew, performing tests and operations the station couldn’t provide—so in that sense it had never shut down. Maintenance was always going on. Galleys were active. Provisions were always going aboard, to what level of preparedness they had never questioned. The ship’s machinery shops and production facilities, though micro-g, were warm, powered, and in constant use, from the first days, when Phoenix’smanufacturing facilities had been the sole source of parts and pieces for station repair. They still were turning out a good portion of station foodstuffs, most of the extruded beams—there was very little difference, in that regard, from crew engaged in station manufacture and those on shipboard production, except that some operations went better in micro-g and some went better in the station, where things naturally or unnaturally fell into buckets. Crew came and they went, one facility to the other, and various aspects of the ship—including the power plant—had never shut down.
So maybe the ship-folk never had bet their lives wholly on the station or on the planet below.
Maybe the ship had alwaysbeen three days from undocking and leaving, give or take the fuel to go anywhere in particular after undocking. He hadn’t asked, and Jase hadn’t told him what—to Jase—might be an underlying fact of life.
And now, in the paidhi’s longterm ignorance of shipboard realities, Phoenixcould just break away and go on a moment’s notice. Three days might be the captains’ notion of a leisurely departure. And the whole affair that had untidy strings and suspicious tags dangling off it—might not be the strings and tags of conspiracy, but rather of hastily revised plans, plans that had had to be changed in frantic haste… because the whole thing had been shoved into motion prematurely by Ramirez’s failing health.
Well, hecouldn’t solve it. His staff didn’t know the answer. As to whether Ramirez had explained the situation fully to Tabini, the aiji-dowager never gave up a secret, either, until she could get good exchange from it.
The simple fact was that they were going, and the dowager was going, and he was going, a headlong slide toward a cliff—beyond which he had insufficient information even to imagine his future.
And that meant he had to set his own private life in suspension; and it wasn’t tidy. It never had been tidy, or convenient, or well-packaged; and now was absolutely the worst time. He didn’t want to call the hospital and tell his mother— Oh, by the way, I’m leaving the solar system for a couple of years. Good luck. Regards to Toby…
He could send to Toby. He needed to. But he didn’t know what to say: Sorry you’ve been in the position you’re in and sorry I can’t help, but I’ve been kidnapped…
That was close to the truth, as happened, and he imagined Toby would be terribly sorry he’d hung up once he knew. Toby would be all sympathy for his brother, and he hadn’t any expectation the spat they’d had was a lasting one—well, bitter because it touched on very sore topics—but Toby wouldn’t think twice on his own misfortunes once that letter reached him.